'The Spanish Princess' Season 2 Episode 4: Who is 'The Other Woman' with whom Henry VIII cheats on Catherine?
Spoilers for Season 2 Episode 4: 'The Other Woman'
There is something about infidelity that women just know. No matter how hard you hide it, or what facade you chose to disguise it with - over the years, pop culture and otherwise has always stressed a woman's ability to just find out everything. And looks like things weren't all that different some five centuries ago when Catherine of Aragon was trying her hardest to understand just why her Tudor king of a husband was so weary of her. Catherine was doing the utmost; she was getting pregnant time and again and still offering to lend her wisdom into the daily running of the state and political affairs. It's a gold struck deal, but the infamous Henry VIII had his appreciation stuck elsewhere. And that's what's probably the most maddening part of Season 2's effectively titled Episode 4 'The Other Woman'.
The pages of history have long documented that ing Henry was a raging adulterer - not necessarily at the latter half of his relationship with Catherine. As the growing impact of Archbishop Wolsey sucks Henry's reason out of his head, he fills up the needy, attention deprived void inside his soul with casual flirting, and later, more serious forms of infidelity. A jilted Catherine keeps hounding her friends and maids and ladies in waiting about the possibility o her husband cheating on her. Everybody knows, there are rumors, but nobody wants to bell the cat in front of the Queen. So Catherine does what she does best and lashes out at her closest consort - Lina, while continuing to be upset over her husband's lack of affection as she battles yet another difficult pregnancy.
For those wondering if there's substance to Catherine's suspicions, she deserves more faith in her wits and wisdom. Catherine isn't the type of woman to randomly go around doubting her beloved; there are Wolsey's active misogyny and based commentary on Catherine's drawbacks in the counsel and need to stay in bed contributing to her distance from her husband. She knows what absence can do to minds as easily swayed as Henry's and she doesn't want to take chances. Henry on the other hand is not wasting any chances; be it Anne Hastings whom he shamelessly flirts with at court, or his own audacity to turn this around on Catherine for not bleeding on her wedding night the way Anne insists eery single woman does - it's sure archetypical crap that instead of making us feel sorry for the impressionable Henry not getting any, just maddens us more. Catherine's love is blind, but the viewer isn't. There has hardly ever been a more deplorable Henry moment on the show.
Yet the crushing heartbreak comes all the way towards the end of the show, and not really with his adultery, which we shall get to soon. Catherine finally gives birth, prematurely again, but the baby is alive and healthy. Sadly, Catherine starts blaming herself as the baby is a girl and Henry, the humongous a**hole, does not come to visit her after giving birth. Catherine lays there once again, wondering why won't he love her and who he was showering his love with, and the answer comes soon enough when she catches him and her own lady-in-waiting Bessie going hot and heavy at it. If Henry's lack of a visit was bad enough, this is awful. To think that Henry still somehow turned around all of this as Catherine's fault in his accounts for getting their marriage annulled is preposterous. But history will tell you Bessie isn't the last of Henry's infidelity, neither does it begin with the infamous Anne Boleyn marriage.
Henry is hardly the only betrayal in this episode either as his sister Meg is betrayed by her very young, but ambitious and secretly married lover Angus. When Scotland revolts against the man violating their queen, Meg has to come clean about their marriage, which only enrages the men further. Meg rushes to safety with her children, awaiting Angus, who only returns with the army to seize her children and banish her. We're worried about Meg, but also extremely glad she made it to England because her presence brought one of the only lighthearted moments on the episode, where he quipped about her brother Henry's gaining weight. The real-life infamous Tudor ruler was known to be quite handsome in his early years, before the imminent weight took over, and looks like the show is following the same pattern.
'The Spanish Princess' Season 2 airs on Sundays at 8m only on Starz.